In Abilene, about 200 miles west of Dallas, Natura Resources is building the nation’s first advanced liquid-fuel research reactor in nearly 40 years. The project is housed at Abilene Christian University, where a $25 million research facility was completed in September 2023.
Natura has raised $120 million in private funding and received another $120 million from the Legislature.
Natura’s technology uses molten salt as both fuel and coolant — a design last tested at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1960s. The company is first building a 1-megawatt research reactor in Abilene, intended to demonstrate to regulators and investors that the technology works and is safe.
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Aalo Atomics is taking a different approach. The startup, founded by Canadian-born engineer Matt Loszak and based in Austin, is designing a sodium-cooled fast reactor, a technology that uses solid fuel, like conventional nuclear plants, built specifically for factory mass production.
Each unit would produce 10 megawatts, enough to power roughly 6,000 to 7,000 homes in Texas, and the reactors will be sized to fit on a standard truck. Aalo’s commercial model would consist of five of these units, totaling 50 megawatts.
Loszak said the company plans to activate its first 10 megawatt test reactor within about five months, after completing prototype testing at the end of December, as part of its effort to move toward commercial deployment.
Man, someone seriously pissed in your Cheerios. I’m not defending them at all. My point since the beginning has always been that if you are trying to get away with gambling on the system. At some point you will lose. That is 100% on you. Doesn’t matter if it’s betting, ARMs, variable rate electricity, whatever.
I don’t even think everyone had the option of not getting a variable pricing, but even if they all did have the choice, no one would assume the companies would charge over a thousand times the going rate of electricity. How you could defend that is just astonishing. Yes it’s their fault for not realizing the should choose the option that gives a flat rate, and not try to save some money using more electricity when prices are lower, as clearly the industry would fail and charge them a year’s salary for a week’s electricity.
It’s their fault, for not realizing they were going to be gouged to a ruinous extent, after those companies failed in their duty, and that their politicians would abandon them, and have abandoned them already?